# [03:12] <MikeSmith> AryehGregor: hsivonen would definitely have insight into that, if he had time to look at in detail. but I think his time for validator.nu bug fixing is limited right now. so in the mean time, I can take a look at it unless he beats me to it.

# [05:39] <othermaciej> I guess based on that, the logical conclusion is that Private Browsing should be the UI to turn off ping, but I suspect some people will want to turn it off without crippling their browsing experience quite that much

# [06:22] <othermaciej> presumably Private Browsing mode would not reveal to the server up front that <a ping> won't do anything

# [06:22] <othermaciej> (likewise for any other way of turning it off)

# [06:22] <ifette> presumably you can figure out that the user is in private browsing mode based on some of the other discussions around local storage and that API being disabled, and so can fall back to redirects :)

# [06:23] <ifette> I just don't get all the concern about a ping. Great, so you know the user clicked a link... okay. Any messaging to users is going to be deceptive for the majority of them. I can't just have a checkbox that says "disable <a ping>", but if I try to say "disable link tracking"

# [06:23] <ifette> that would just be dishonest given that there's so many other ways to do it

# [06:24] <ifette> Frankly, I would much rather say "look, websites can figure out if you clicked on a link. It's been that way for a long time. Live with it. <a ping> lets life move on as it has, but can make your browsing faster

# [06:24] <othermaciej> that would be an argument to have no UI at all to turn it off

# [06:26] <ifette> What's the real use case here? What's the concern? If it's "evil google will know all the links I'm clicking", that information is already known, and furthermore if I want to be evil, I can say "If I never got an a ping response with this cookie, then for this cookie don't use a ping and use redirects instead"

# [06:26] <ifette> I will happily do so, if I can find the right thread. I will admit to being swamped via email.

# [06:27] <Hixie> the two main reasons we (google) want ping="" is (a) allowing us to honour user privacy desires without them having to use a cookie to opt-out, and (b) latency improvements from not redirecting.

# [06:27] <Hixie> so if the browser supports ping, we wouldn't route around it being disabled

# [06:27] <othermaciej> ifette: I'm just saying that if you think there should be no browser UI to turn it off, then you shouldn't argue with me, because I didn't make or ask for the spec requirement to have it

# [06:30] <ifette> It seems to me that the following are probable: 1) if a ping isn't reliable / everyone turns it off because it's something that the media gets hyped up about like cookies, no one will use it and just use redirects instead 2) any option presented to users would be unintelligable and over promise or seem like a no-brainer to check c) none of this will matter to "evil" sites

# [06:30] <othermaciej> under private browsing, a malicious site could tell what links you follow off their page by other means, but could not tie it back to you due to lack of cookies

# [06:30] <othermaciej> though to be fair, we don't yet have a way to turn off your IP address

# [06:30] <othermaciej> well, cookies can be turned off, but in practice very few people do

# [06:30] <ifette> othermaciej: i view private browsing as "don't leave a trace of what I do on my computer", not "please use TOR and make me as anonymous as possible"

# [06:30] <Hixie> if it's "something that the media gets hyped up about like cookies", then people won't turn it off.

# [06:31] <ifette> othermaciej: if you say "private browsing mode turns off <a ping>", what do you say to a real user?

# [06:31] <othermaciej> most sites consider cookies reliable enough for their needs, even though there are a small minority of users who turn them off entirely

# [06:31] <othermaciej> a few sites use Flash cookies instead, though you can turn off plugins to get around those

# [06:31] <Hixie> i think if the preference is a serious one like i proposed earlier, and not just one that disabled just this feature, that it won't be turned off just for the sake of it, but only by people who actually want their privacy protected

# [06:32] <ifette> othermaciej: Yes, people still use cookies, not the best example. Was trying to say that it's something real users don't well understand, and that in general when you mention cookies people think "bad" without understanding

# [06:36] <ifette> and so the effect of turning it off in private browsing mode would be minimal

# [06:37] <jorlow> well, users shouldn't be freaked out....because nothing is worse than the state of things today

# [06:37] <othermaciej> they shouldn't be, but the concern about having a preference is based on the theory that a lot of them will

# [06:37] <jorlow> but of course, that doesn't necessarily mean the media won't write a story to the contrary

# [06:37] <ifette> I think my preference is really to say "Look, sites can know what link you click. That's the way it is today, we're not changing anything except reducing some latency, live with it. If you want more controls over your data, let's have a more comprehensive discussion and figure soething out"

# [06:38] <othermaciej> my expectation: only a small minority of users will care enough to take action

# [06:38] <jorlow> Well, maybe the preference can be a check box with a somewhat cryptic name

# [06:38] <othermaciej> failing to give those people a means to take action without switching browsers will generate a huge amount of negative PR

# [06:38] <jorlow> i mean, most users don't even know what a cookie is...even today

# [06:43] <othermaciej> sure, but we present that in terms of concrete result, not "more compatible" vs "more private"

# [06:43] <othermaciej> likewise we don't present "Enable Java" as "Make some sites work, but damn will they be slow and there's probably horrible security consequences"

# [06:43] <ifette> Hixie: If I don't let users turn off something as major as JavaScript, I'm sure as hell not letting them turn off some random thing like <a ping>. Down that road lies the path to hell. I am also not tying it to Incognito, as I think again it has little to do with it and won't actually solve any problem

# [06:44] <othermaciej> or "Enable plug-ins" as "Support casual games and annoying ads"

# [06:44] <ifette> Hixie: I'm happy to send an email, but I would not support anything beyond a MAY for the option

# [06:46] <Hixie> ifette: it would be politically inconvenient for me to change the "should" to a "may", but i don't think it matters -- "should" just means you have to have a good reason, and "We want our UA to be usable" is a good reason

# [07:38] <othermaciej> I'm glad such archectypes as Purple Haired Girl, Guy with Nerdy Slogan T-Shirt, Asian Guy in Cargo Shorts and Hippie Girl in Long Dress are still to be found at the ol' Institute

# [08:02] <othermaciej> but yeah, you're right, this is a typographical oddity that you rarely see anywhere but movie posters

# [08:11] <MikeSmith> hsivonen: if/when you have some time, I wanted to ask you if you think it would be worthwhile to add ability to the validator.nu for emitting warnings to the datatype-checking code

# [08:25] <MikeSmith> hsivonen: not emitting messages for those cases seems like declaring defeat to me. I would personally really rather not do that unless you think there's no practical way to work around it. even if it ends up being kind of a messy way

# [08:29] <MikeSmith> but the error-reporting backend could check for that magic substring and then make those messages warnings instead of errors

# [08:31] <MikeSmith> I don't know how do-able that is in the current backend. or whether you think it'd even be a good idea to do it at all

# [08:32] <hsivonen> MikeSmith: It's easy to put a flag on the exception so that the RELAX NG semantics of the result are "invalid" but the V.nu front end downgrades the message type (and the validity outcome)

# [08:32] <hsivonen> MikeSmith: what's hard is making the RELAX NG semantics be that the result is valid

# [08:32] <hsivonen> MikeSmith: I guess this is a "theoretical purity" kind of point

# [08:33] <hsivonen> MikeSmith: I think you can't detect it with the current schema

# [08:33] <hsivonen> MikeSmith: but in principle, it changes the generic reuse characteristics of the datatype lib

# [08:33] <hsivonen> MikeSmith: maybe in this case, it's anyway the best solution to make the exception have a flag that tells V.nu to downgrade the message

# [10:54] <Hixie> hsivonen: those methods don't do what one might think they do, iirc

# [10:55] <hsivonen> Hixie: maybe, but it sucks that MS proposed making the thing transactional, the proposal was rejected, they shipped and now we find that Chrome and Firefox need them to be transactional, too

# [10:55] <Hixie> iirc the transactional api they were proposing wouldn't have solved the problem being discussed here

# [11:15] <Micheil> Hixie: well I mean, I wouldn't mind "donating" money to the w3c in the membership style basis, eg, AWIA membership costs 20$ per year (for student), which would be good as a contribution to the w3c's projects

# [12:48] <Lachy> annevk3, that's the same problem in lots of countries in the world. One day the entertainment industry will learn that the lack of legal alternative is a major cause of piracy, and that it's their own fault.

# [12:48] <Hixie> i so desperately want to watch Have I Got News For You

# [12:48] <Lachy> Hixie, I haven't heard of that show. Is it available on BBC iPlayer?

# [14:21] <Lachy> hsivonen, I doubt the removal of the CC RDF metadata is forbidden. As long as the actual requirements of the licence are met. I don't think the technology chosen to express that licence is enforcable.

# [14:25] <ttepass-> ?Microdata allows you to mark parts of a web page as machine-readable, named data, building a list of name-value-pairs, so that? etc.? ? ?on the top of webpages? sounds a little bit like angels on an pin.

# [14:25] <hsivonen> "You must keep intact all notices that refer to this License and to the disclaimer of warranties with every copy of the Work You Distribute or Publicly Perform."

# [14:25] <hsivonen> "keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing"

# [14:26] <hsivonen> I'd argue that RDF/XML is not reasonable for the text/html medium.

# [14:26] <annevk3> Hixie, syntax/examples will be different for each of the three microdata thingies?

# [14:26] <Hixie> ttepass-: a lot of microdata/rdfa/microformats/rdf/etc are angels on a pin

# [14:27] <hsivonen> it would be a huge bug in the CC licenses if use on media that doesn't support RDF/XML were prohibited

# [14:28] <ttepass-> (Depends on the viewpoint, of course) My point is more that ?to layer lists on top of a page? is rather distant from the viewpoint of web authors while ?marking things up? is more intuitive.

# [17:23] <TabAtkins> Also: WebIDL means that native javascript is always going to be saddled with a Java-like interface in an attempt to be language-agnostic, so we'll never have a DOM that's actually easy to use and leverages the unique strengths and design structure of js.

# [17:25] <annevk3> actually, Web IDL is an attempt to get away from that

# [17:26] <TabAtkins> That'd be good. I'm honestly just name-dropping, and don't understand a lot of the crazy interface descriptions you people use. I just know that describing apis in terms of some interface language has been cited as the reason why we can't do smart things in javascript, because some languages that would implement the api don't have the relevant abilities.

# [20:31] <Lachy> rubys1, in that case, what significant differences do you perceive between the pedagogical and polyglot modes of validation?

# [20:32] <Lachy> If you only intend the polyglot checker to check the specific features that get submitted as test cases, rather than a fully XHTML-compatible polyglot document checker, why do you need both modes?

# [20:33] <Lachy> I'd rather not have a validator claim to have a polyglot checking mode, if it isn't at least fully XHTML-compatible

# [20:34] <Lachy> (I can accept it opting to not check for things like the inclusion of tbody or LF after <pre> start tags, etc.)

# [20:38] <rubys1> My sense is that Lars and Tantek have different goals... I'm simply prepared to track both.

# [20:39] <rubys1> specifically, I sense that Tantek will want some checks that Lars isn't happy with

# [20:42] <rubys1> My feeling is that a number of people want "XHTML", but when you ask specific questions about weird edge cases, they say "I don't want that". So, I'm trying to get people to say what they really want.

# [20:44] <rubys1> overall, I think that informational messages about implicitly closed tags would be a good thing, checking for attribute quotes is a MEH for many people, and flagging &nbsp; is something that only a few crazies will want.